


Homecoming

by Annwyd



Category: Marvel (Comics)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-22
Updated: 2014-07-22
Packaged: 2018-02-09 21:36:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1998711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Annwyd/pseuds/Annwyd
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An unexpected togetherness takes getting used to. Normalcy can come later.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Homecoming

The first night after Natasha moves into his apartment, he tries to cook dinner for her. It's not really difficult, or it shouldn't be. Bucky is not an incompetent man; he can follow a recipe, and he certainly has the manual dexterity to handle a spatula and a few bottles of sauce. The problem is that it feels strange to wield something with a purpose and have that purpose not be violence. He self-consciously reminds himself not to grip the spatula like he would a gun, although it is an obvious thing and he doesn't really need the reminder. Cutting the vegetables is distracting; the knife is too sharp, and, without asking his heart for permission, his anxious brain recounts the ways he could swiftly kill someone with it.

Halfway through, he throws the implements down to the counter. "This is stupid," he says to thin air; Natasha isn't back yet. It's really stupid. The knife is meant to be a weapon, and so is he. He can hide behind the shield all he likes, but he's a killer, not a protector.

But he hears her footsteps on the stairs, and the burgers are still sizzling on the stove, so before he can think much more about it, he picks the spatula up again and hopes he used the right amount of sauce.

The next night, he comes home late, the sky already mostly dark, and he worries that he's kept her waiting. Still, he stops on the corner before their apartment, and he notices something: the hedges next to him are full of honeysuckle flowers in bloom. He's had the chance to notice flowers in the past couple of years, of course. No one has stopped him; no programming has kept his mind on the mission. But this is the first time he actually does it. He considers the little blossoms and thinks of how the creamy petals would look against the red of her hair. His heart skips, and he probably vandalizes someone's property when he takes a few sprigs of the plant, which should just go to show that he's terrible at being a proper civic-minded superhero, but he doesn't care as he does it.

She's waiting when he does get back to the apartment, already dressed down for the night, sprawled on the couch in a shirt and jeans, flipping through a magazine. He sits next to her without a word, reaches out to smooth back her hair, and starts to tuck the flowers into it by their stems. One, over her ear; another, a little bit higher; a third--

"I don't think so, James." She plucks the third flower out, sits up, and deftly slips it into his hair instead.

"It looks better on you," he says.

Her eyes shine more green than the leaves outside when she looks back at him. "I'll be the judge of that."

The flowers fall out, eventually, when they kiss.

On the third night after Natasha joins him in his home, Bucky realizes that he has already grown comfortable sleeping curled up against her, free from worries of who will find them together and destroy what they have and put them both to use as weapons again. He kisses her hair, and they both sleep.


End file.
